


What'll You Fall For?

by Catmod



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a happy ending?, Aziraphale Falls, Aziraphale is pissed, I Blame Tumblr, M/M, depends what you call happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catmod/pseuds/Catmod
Summary: The angels couldn't let Aziraphale get away with mocking everything they stand for by cavorting with a demon. So they devise a suitable punishment that'll lead to Aziraphale's downFall.





	What'll You Fall For?

**Author's Note:**

> You can blame two-nipples-maybe-more on Tumblr for this. I have no regrets. Also, yes, the title is from Hamilton.

Those residing in heaven after the failed apocalypse were not happy. Far from it. Aziraphale has all but spat in the face of God with the way he’s been acting. Partnering with a demon to stop the Great War. It was disgusting.

“What he’s done is beyond blasphemous,” Metatron screamed, slamming their fist on the table. 

“We can’t let this continue,” Michael agrees solemnly as she looked over the group before her. The meeting, of course, was to decide the fate of Aziraphale. Just because he now seemed to be impervious to hellfire, did not mean that they were willing to let such a clear affront to God to continue.

“I have a proposal,” Gabriel says as he makes his way to the head of the table. “Clearly this demon has tempted and corrupted our brother away from the flock.” This got a round of solemn nods from those at the table. “So! We stop the corruption at the source!”

“And how do you intend to do that? They seemed to... Know each other quite well.” All the angels in the room shuttered at Sandalphon’s remark. 

“Simple,” Gabriel said as he shook off his disgust. “I propose we give Aziraphale one last chance,” He paused as he waited for the cries of outrage to settle. “On one condition...”

\-------------------------

Aziraphale was nervous when he received an official summons back to heaven. He had hoped that his and Crowley’s ruse would last a little longer. As he stood in front of the door to meeting room he took one last fortifying breath, squared his shoulders and opened the door.

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel greeted him with a smile that had just a touch too many teeth. “The man of the hour.” He laughed with a couple of fake punches to his chest and stomach that still made Aziraphale take a step back as if he’d been struck.

“What do you want, Gabriel?” He asked with a frown. There was no reason to draw this out longer than necessary. He knew he wasn’t truly wanted here.

“Why to offer you another chance!” There’s that smile again. The kind that made your skin crawl. “We finally figured it out!”

“Figured... Figured what out?” Aziraphale asked trying and failing to hide how on edge he is.

“Why you would side with a demon over your own kin, of course!” Gabriel turned and a group of angels came and restrained Aziraphale from behind. They hold tightly regardless of his struggling. “You’ve been spending much too much time around that filthy demon. That wily serpent’s seduced you from God’s grace. But! As it is written, we shall forgive!”

“This hardly looks like forgiveness.” He growls out lowly but stops struggling. He highly doubts that it would make much difference in prolonging the inevitable.

“Well, what’s forgiveness without penance?” Gabriel laughs as he walks behind Aziraphale as he’s forced to kneel. With a surge of holy energy, he is forced to expose his wings to the world. “This is only fitting.”

Aziraphale screams in agony as something is done to his wings. Like there's now something crawling and burning under his skin. “What did you do?!” He screeched when he finally got his breathing under control. 

“An insurance policy,” Gabriel says as he shakes his hand as if he’d just touched the most disgusting thing on the planet. “We’ll forgive your.. transgressions. But there are some new rules you’ll have to follow.”

“... What new rules?” They weren’t going to remove him from his post on Earth, were they? That burning wasn’t them taking his corporeal body, was it?! As long as it wasn’t that, he and Crowley could figure it out. Crowley was the king of skirting around rules.

“Simple really!” Gabriel smiled as he spun back towards him. “You are under strict orders to stay away from that demon in all shapes and forms. If you see him, you send for one of the lower angels to take care of him. Every moment spent in his presence, every minute you spend communicating with him on your telephone devices, every letter you write to him; you will lose a feather. When you lose them all...” He puts on a fake sympathetic look. The kind you give telling someone you’re sorry when you cut them in line but stay where they are. That is to say, completely not sorry. “Then you will Fall.”

Ice flowed through his veins as Gabriel prattled off platitudes and patted him on the shoulder on his way out with his lackeys. 

That’s it then? 

He was supposed to just roll over and play nice? Just go on as they sit pretty up here in heaven and take everything that matters from him? Who died and made them God anyway?!

Aziraphale straightened his jacket and wiped the tears from his face. His wings still throbbed as he tucked them back into place, but he didn’t care. He was pissed and needed a drink. 

Once back in his shop, the first thing he did was open his finest bottle of wine and drink the entire contents within a single sip. He was working on the fourth bottle by the time Crowley called him. 

“Crowley?” He answered without thinking. The effects were immediate. There was a burning sensation from where his wings were tucked hidden. He stumbled as he looked behind himself to assess the damage. True to Gabriel’s words, there was a pristine white feather on the chair he’d been sitting in. 

“Hello? Angel?.... Aziraphale!” He blinked as he realized he was still on the phone. 

“Sorry.” He said as he fumbled to right the receiver and winced as another feather dropped to the floor. “ I... I got distracted.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Crowley said with a dry laugh. “So how’d the meeting with the big wigs go? They make you say a couple Hail Mary’s? Maybe sit through another production of Sound of Music?”

“....Something like that.” God, he needed another drink. 

“Well, all water under the bridge and all that,” Crowley continued. “Could you open the door now? I’ve got a bottle of Cheval Blanc and I am not letting it get to room temp.”

Aziraphale hung up immediately as he rushed to the door to let the demon in. In the process, he may have knocked over a pile of books, but he still took a moment to straighten himself out to look slightly more presentable before opening the door. 

“There you are!” Crowley smiled as he sauntered into the shop. He made a pointed look at the scattered books littering the floor and the table hosting the already empty bottles and laughed. “Already celebrating without me? I mean, I would too, really. Three hours of Sondheim can make anyone go mad. How he’s not one of ours is beyond me.” 

Aziraphale chuckled humorously as he watched Crowley effortlessly bustle around to uncork the bottle in his hands and pour two glasses. He did his best to use Crowley’s distraction to hurriedly sweep the growing piles of feathers behind another book stack and quickly sit down to cover the ones littering the chair.

Crowley turns back around and hands him a glass before taking the seat adjacent to him. “To once again having some peace and quiet.” He said as he raised his glass.

Aziraphale hesitantly clinked the glasses and took a long sip that drained half the glass. His back felt like it was on fire. But he didn’t want to send Crowley away. He couldn’t send Crowley away. 

So instead he just drank. He laughed at Crowley’s jokes and vented about the ridiculous things he’d had to deal with around his fellow angels. “So there I was minding my own blooody business and in walks Gabriel and Sandalphon and-and of all the ways to caus- casually talk in private, Sandalphon burp-blurts out that they’re here to buy “pornography!”” He says the last bit into the most obnoxiously nasally voice he could muster in his drunken stain that sends Crowley roaring in laughter. “6,000 years of existence and they still have the social graces of a spoon!”

Crowley flicks his sunglasses up as he wipes a tear from his eye. “Could you imagine having to spend eternity with those halfwits if we had failed? If I wasn’t already a demon, I’d have fallen years ago from dealing with that!” He shuttered at the thought.

“They all just think they’re so much better than everyone else!” Aziraphale shouted as he slammed his glass onto the table. “I mean look at the humans! They create things that a hundred angels in a hundred years couldn’t dream of creating! They make little gadgets and create new foods and songs and-and-and dances! Do you know how many disapproving looks I got from the angels when I showed them I learned the gavotte?” He stood out of his chair and started to dance just to spite anyone who might be watching him at this moment. What better way to fall than to do it while breaking every angel taboo in front of a demon? 

His dancing was really more drunken stumbling but Crowley laughed and clapped a beat for him anyway. At least until his foot caught on a stray book that he had left scattered around on the floor. It may have just been the wine, but the fall felt much longer than it should have. And then he wasn’t anymore. He opened his eyes to find himself staring into the serpentine eyes of Crowley. “Easy there Angel,” He laughed as he set him back upright. “Wouldn’t want to hurt any more of your precious books.” 

“Right. The books.Yes.” Aziraphale stuttered out slightly disappointed as Crowley started to move away. His hand brushed his wings where they hid just beneath the surface making him hiss in pain.

“What was that?” Crowley asked suddenly all his attention back on him. A touch that usually left him shivering in anticipation should not cause him pain.

“N-nothing!” Aziraphale quickly backed away out of Crowley’s darting grasp. “I-I just had a l-little to much to drink! I should... I should sober up.” He muttered not able to bring himself to look Crowley in the eye.

“This is not “a little too much to drink”,” Crowley snaps making him cringe even further away. He knew Aziraphale had been hiding something from him. He was a demon. Lies were his thing. Even without all that, he knew Aziraphale like the back of his own hand. There was something wrong that he wasn’t telling him. “Those heavenly bastards did something to you! What was it?”

“It’s fine! Nothing I can’t handle!” Aziraphale snapped right back. Suddenly everything was just too much. The burning on his back that the wine refused to dull, the swirling buzz of alcohol across his mind that was starting to make the world spin, the hum of the record player that had long since run out and was just spewing white noise, having to dodge Crowley’s constantly grabbing hands. “I... I can’t deal with this drunk. I need to sober up.” He said, slapping Crowley’s hands again as he concentrated on purging the alcohol from his system.

Crowley watched him like a hawk while this happened. He took a brief moment to survey the room for any clues that might indicate what’s wrong with him. That’s when he finally noticed it. The pile of feathers resting on Aziraphale’s chair and his blood ran cold. he hated how much his hand shook as he reached down and picked up a pristine, white feather from the chair “No.”

Aziraphale looked at him as he shook off the last of the haze of alcohol. It took a second for his mind to catch up with what Crowley was referring to. “Oh, that? I-it’s fine! Just going through a bit of a molt, you see? Just a typical- typical angel thing! Ha-happens all the time!” He knew his excuse was crap, but he was panicking. His back was on fire and he was Falling and he didn’t want Crowley to try and stop him. He couldn’t go back to heaven like this. He refused to after this stunt. And all he wanted to do was spend his last moments as an angel to be spent in Crowley’s company. Not because he needed Crowley to “corrupt” him. But because he couldn’t think of a better person to be around, angel, demon, or otherwise. Crowley made existence worth living. 

“Don’t you dare pull that “angel thing” with me!” Crowley snarled as he grabbed Aziraphale by the collar and giving him no room but to look directly into his eyes. “I have known you for over 6 millennia, this is not normal! So stop bullshitting me and tell me what’s wrong!” 

Aziraphale stared down Crowley’s shining yellow eyes. For any other being, staring into the serpentine eyes of a snarling demon would be a terrifying experience. But Aziraphale could see the panic behind the anger. Crowley was scared. The fear of losing someone that mattered lurking underneath the surface broke his heart. So he unfurled his wings, mindful to keep them from knocking into the stacks of books. He didn’t know what they looked like at this point. But judging by the look on Crowley’s face, it was anything but good.

Crowley stumbled away as if he’d been slapped. “Chri-Je-.GomMM... What did they do to you?” He whispered in shock. No. NononononononNO. This can NOT be happening. His mind was racing as it tried to dodge coming to the conclusion it was hurtling towards.

“W-well,” Aziraphale starts carefully. He’s purposefully stopping himself from looking at his wings. He knows he’ll break down if he does. It’ll be real that he’s Falling and not an angry concept in his head. “Gabriel and the-the others came to the conclusion that you, well, that you had seduced me from God’s graces. Funny really when you think about it. No one’s seducing anyone. If anything I’d be seducing you.” 

He was rambling to delay the inevitable. Once Crowley found out it was directly his presence he was Falling over he’d leave. He’d make up every excuse in the book to avoid him for the rest of eternity. And he did not defy the machinations of heaven and hell to spend their hard-won peace without Crowley. But a hard look from the demon and he knew Crowley’s patience was running thin. “S-so! So they decided that if they, well, couldn’t burn me at the stake they would have n-no choice but to forgive me.”

“You angels have a very skewed idea of forgiveness,” Crowley remarked with a pointed look at his wings. If they were forgiving Aziraphale, then he wouldn’t be Falling right before his eyes.

“Y-yes. Exactly! Well, they decided their forgiveness should have a few stipulations.” He spat out the word like a curse. The clauses of their “forgiveness” were enough to bring his blood back to an angry boil. At least he could work with anger. Anger drowned out the soul rendering fear lurking underneath. He didn’t want to Fall. He just had no other choice. “They did something that made it so I’d lose a feather for every moment I spent with- with you. And-And when I lost them all I’d F-Fall.” 

The glower on Crowley’s face deepened with every word Aziraphale said. That bloody idiot. “No.” He said with a deathly calmness. He marches over to the couch and grabs his jacket and glasses and storms towards the door.

“Crowley! Wait!” Aziraphale quickly scrambled after him to try and bar his exit. He couldn’t leave now! He knew deep in his soul that if he let Crowley leave now, he’d never see him again. “Please! Don’t leave me!”

Crowley growled at the angel who was now blocking the door out “Move!”

“No.” Aziraphale said with a shake of his head.

“I said: move! You bloody idiot!”

“And I said: No!” 

“Yes! I’m not letting you Fall for me!” 

“Who said I was Falling for you?!” Why did everyone think that everything he did was for Crowley?! He was fully capable of thinking for himself! Yes, being forbidden to see Crowley broke his heart. But it was more than that! For millennia his brothers and sisters looked down on him. Ever since he gave his flaming sword away and was demoted from being a cherub, the others looked down their noses at him and thought of him as too soft. They thought that having compassion was a weakness that “clouded the mind from God’s grace”. It was a load of bull then and it’s been festering pile for the last 6,000 years since. If being an angel meant he’d have to numb himself from the world. To be like his siblings who could destroy entire civilizations because a select few offended them. Then he’ll Fall. Not because of them. Not for Crowley. But for himself. Crowley’s presence was just a means to those ends. “Can you pull your head out of the sand for two seconds to realize not everything is about you?!”

“Don’t pretend like I’m not part of this.” Crowley snarled right back. “You don’t understand what you’re getting yourself into. Falling isn’t some jaunty vacation! You’ll become a demon. Like me and the rest of the miserable bastards down in Hell that love to cause pain and chaos. The only difference is these bastards would have no problem hurting you if you crossed your path. There is no “brotherhood” or “goodwill” down there! You will be made to ruin people’s day and spread as much evil as you can in the process. Do you really think you can handle that?”

He didn’t have a good answer. He was caught between a rock and a hard place here. He was an angel. He fully believed in the heavenly ideals of being good and seeing the value in every living being. But he couldn’t be one when given the ultimatum those in Heaven were giving him. So instead he cupped Crowley’s cheek making the demon pause his angry tirade. “... But you’ll be there on the other side?”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale wide-eyed as his brain short-circuited. Aziraphale had never been so bold to initiate this kind of contact before. He was always blushing and wilting away from him like a fair maiden from fairytales. They both knew he was far from it. But Aziraphale was always one for appearances. He really was a selfish old serpent. “... Of course.” He said softly and turned his head to kiss Aziraphale's palm. “Until the end of time.”

Aziraphale blushed heavily at the contact but still smiled. He was about to become a demon anyway, might as well stop caring about propriety. He leaned down and kissed the demon passionately. Aziraphale’s last feather drifted lazily to the floor completely unnoticed to the two.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? Hate it? Please leave a comment! I crave validation that someone at least read it! QnQ


End file.
